


Cat Scratch Fever

by castigat



Category: Cowboy Bebop
Genre: Gen, Not Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 12:11:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7438521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castigat/pseuds/castigat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jet asks a question that has been bothering him for some time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cat Scratch Fever

“You never did tell me why you don’t like cats.”

Spike halts at the top of the stairs leading into the Bebop’s living room, his hands poised at his mouth with cigarette and lighter. The hall door closes behind him.

“Or animals at all,” Jet continues. He’s bent over his apron, working at reattaching one of the straps while he asks.

Spike’s eyes are drawn to the strap, briefly, as a distraction. After a moment, he resumes functioning and lights his cigarette. He doesn’t move from where he’s standing; instead, he puts his lighter in his jacket, leans over the railing between them, and takes a long draw from his cigarette. He exhales a plume of smoke and waits.

“You’re not obligated to tell me anything,” Jet adds as an afterthought. He glances at Spike without lifting his head. “It doesn’t really matter.”

“If it doesn’t matter, why did you ask?”

Jet is silent for a time, his eyes back on the apron. He heaves a sigh and begins sewing again. “People usually have reasons for disliking things,” he states. “And yours seems to have a background to it.”

Spike doesn’t answer. He lets his cigarette burn down and stares at the floor. As he leans over the handrail, he wanders away from the room. He fades from Jet and his apron and emerges with Julia and Vicious, in the smoky bars and billiards halls, listening to smooth jazz oozing out of baritone saxophones. Julia is in that leather ensemble, Julia peers over him when he awakens, Julia sings to him while he stares at the ceiling and wishes Death would just stop wasting time—though, if this is the alternative, maybe it isn’t so bad.

He and Vicious laugh together about everything. They are partners, brothers, inseparable.

Vicious ruptures, tears in half, falls away, and darkness takes his place.

He relives being a stray—he still is a stray, moving from event to event in life without thought, flowing and changing course as life nudges him along. He is long past crashing against life’s obstacles; he has become a calm water that simply moves along and adapts until it is disturbed.

He streams through the landscape as a spectator, in the same way as he lives. His memories are a film reel that replays every second that he is not distracted by his waking dreams. His existence is a documentary made in real-time about a dead man, a posthumous recording of a ravenous beast that lost its teeth, bled out, and faded away.

When it stops, it rarely starts up from where it was previously; it rewinds and restarts from the beginning. Sometimes it begins from a random snippet that his consciousness plucks up without his permission and, inevitably, loops back to the beginning.

Each scene is tenuously linked together with the melody of Julia’s voice. They are crisp and vivid, _real_ , but always just out of reach.

Spike accepts the unrelenting images as his penance.

“I bet”—Jet’s gruff voice pulls Spike back into his body and he refocuses on the metal flooring—“one scratched you and now you have cat scratch fever.”

Spike is late returning from his journey; only a handful of seconds have passed since Jet elaborated on his question. He smiles until Spike looks up—his smile falters, his brow furrows. He’s worried, and Spike has a few seconds to rectify the situation. He smiles easily, as if he is amused, shakes his head, and pushes himself away from the railing.

As the hall door opens and he turns to leave the room, he says, “I’ve got a fever of 103.”

Spike disappears, the door closes again. Jet groans and smacks his hand over his face.


End file.
